National Geographic Food
•
6th June 2023
Caffeine Fix
In Bududa, a lush, yet landslide-prone region of eastern Uganda, Mary Butsina and a growing number of other women farmers have built their lives on coffee. “I’m supporting all of my 10 children with it,” says the 36-year-old, holding a red bucket, Mt Elgon looming behind her. “The smell, the taste, everything… I love it.”
Born to farmers, Mary first went to work with her father at the age of 10. Through coffee, he paid her school fees. She married into coffee too, with her husband giving her 100 trees as a wedding present, but Mary’s since planted more than 300 herself.
She’s part of a women’s co-operative, which was founded in 2004. “The aim was to reduce the dependence of women on men in coffee,” she says. She’s one of around 100 women who are members, though allowing their husbands to join – because they tend to own the coffee plantations and support their wives in the business – has increased the total membership to 200. And the collective has inspired others, too. “More women have started to plant their own coffee,” Mary says.
She rises early every day to pick the arabica coffee cherries – the fruit of the plant. “It is hard work but when you concentrate it can become easy,” says Mary. After gathering ripe red coffee cherries, she puts them in a large bucket of water to separate the healthy from the defective coffee. If a coffee cherry is damaged from an insect or disease, it floats. The latter are removed and the remaining put through a small hand-powered coffee pulper. The farmer turns a crank and pours water into the machine, using tiny metal teeth to separate the outer coffee fruit from the inner coffee seed. This is the coffee "bean". These beans are put back into water to ferment for at least two days. This process helps to develop flavors in the coffee and further removes the slimy sweet fruit mucilage. The now washed beans are placed on "African Raised Drying Beds" simple, wooden-framed racks with a mesh liner that the wet beans are spread out upon, in direct sunlight. Air can flow naturally all around the beans, allowing for quick and even drying.
Once the beans have reached the desired dryness, coffee is gathered together by the cooperative and collected by Endiro Coffee, a tree-to-cup social enterprise working with women-led, organic farmers including those in Bududa. There are still a few more steps to the journey, but this is where Endiro takes over. They mill the coffee to remove the skin or "parchment" covering the beans. Later, it will be roasted, ground and finally brewed by a barista or at home on a coffee brewing device.
In a good harvest season, Mary says she can make 6,000,000 Ugandan shillings (around £1,600), a pretty decent income for this area. For the rest of the year, Mary works as a tailor.
It hasn’t been an easy journey for the Bududa farmers, who’ve faced annual landslides for at least the past 15 years. In 2018, Mary’s mother’s house was destroyed and Mary and two of her siblings lost children. “It washed away some of my coffee plantations,” she says. Other challenges include pests and hailstorms. She eventually dreams of a living in a stable house with water nearby so that she doesn’t have to trek to fetch it, and her own vehicle. “It will take time to save,” she said. “I’ve worked a lot, and I don’t want to stop working, but I want my money to work for me,” she says.
Endiro products including coffee and sauce can be bought at their cafes across Uganda, Kenya and the US, as well as online. endirocoffee.com